It's time / to fly to Hanoi, 1968

CommentaryAs an enigmatic protest against the war in Vietnam, this poster was hung in the apartments of many political activists on the 1960ies and 1970ies. Although the message is clear, it was to be understood intuitively. The poster, with its fly in surreal close-up, is a complex play on words and image that does not allow clear interpretation. Rambow was inspired by an article in the Frankfurter Rundschau that described American Air Force pilots who took off from Guam for bombing missions over Vietnam with the battle cry »It’s time to fly to Hanoi«. Knowing this engenders other associations, such as carpet bombing, the use of Agent Orange with its devastating effects on people, animals and plants, the number of US fighter jets shot down by modern anti-aircraft missiles and finally the USA’s defeat itself.

300 copies of the poster were printed on high-quality paper and published by Gunter Rambow’s Kohlkunstverlag, founded in 1968 in Frankfurt a. M. A further 250 copies were brought out by Druckerei Domberger.

As an enigmatic protest against the war in Vietnam, this poster was hung in the apartments of many political activists on the 1960ies and 1970ies. Although the message is clear, it was to be understood intuitively. The poster, with its fly in surreal close-up, is a complex play on words and image that does not allow clear interpretation. Rambow was inspired by an article in the Frankfurter Rundschau that described American Air Force pilots who took off from Guam for bombing missions over Vietnam with the battle cry »It’s time to fly to Hanoi«. Knowing this engenders other associations, such as carpet bombing, the use of Agent Orange with its devastating effects on people, animals and plants, the number of US fighter jets shot down by modern anti-aircraft missiles and finally the USA’s defeat itself.

300 copies of the poster were printed on high-quality paper and published by Gunter Rambow’s Kohlkunstverlag, founded in 1968 in Frankfurt a. M. A further 250 copies were brought out by Druckerei Domberger.